Lawyers and human rights defenders to discuss the PKK ban

A conference is to be held in Germany to discuss the PKK ban, which will be 25 next year, and the damage it has done to Kurds and the German democracy. The conference will be held on October 20 with many lawyer and human rights defender participants.

ANF

BERLIN

Monday, 15 Oct 2018, 14:30

The PKK ban, declared on November 26, 1993 on the Federal German Government’s decree, is entering its 25th year. The ban has caused hundreds of detentions, arrests and fines among Kurds and the criminalization of the Kurdish people’s struggle for freedom, and there is a considerable group of people who believe the ban has caused harm to the German democracy.

A conference will be held next week in the capital Berlin to discuss the damage the PKK ban has caused to the Kurdish people and German democracy. The conference titled “25 Years of PKK Ban: 25 Years of Oppression, and Democracy Serving German Foreign Policy” will be held from the morning to the evening on October 20.

Azadi Association, who defend the arrested Kurdish politicians in Germany, the International Association for Human Rights and Democracy (MAF-DAD), the Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights Association (EJDM/ELDH) and the Roten Hilfe Federal Administration are organizing the conference.

EXPERTS TO SPEAK ABOUT THE HARMS OF THE BAN

The conference will bring people who have fought against the ban for years and legal experts together. Defense lawyer in the case in Düsseldorf against Kurdish politician in 1988, Edith Lunnebach, Kurdish politician Mehmet Demir and Azadi Association worker Monika Morres will give opening speeches in the conference where many other experts are to speak.

The conference will analyze the PKK ban in Germany within the framework of the legal struggle in other European countries and a legal struggle at the European Union level. Experts will be drawing attention to the policies at the international scope against the Kurdish people’s struggle for freedom.

Presentations in the conference will be given by the following:

- Lawyer Jan Fermon, who participated in the hearings of the court that ruled the PKK “is not a terrorist organization”

- Lawyer Tamara Buruma, who was among the lawyers in the lawsuit filed in the Court of Justice of the EU to remove the PKK “From EU Terror Lists”